A Statagy for Fixing Me - My Visit to a RLS/Apnea Guru

[Polar Bear]

Thanks all for your comments on dosages and how they affected you all.

[slimjim]

Thanks Eefall, I've been following your journey/fight with RLS with much interest. I've had rls for years and finally got off DA's and gaba and now I'm back to getting up a few times every night but, for the time being I'm gonna carry on drug free and see what happens.

[badnights]

For what it's worth, the new formulation - the prodrug version that I can't think of the name of! - also does the same thing for me, but I felt very tired the next day. Could be that a lower dose would have worked.

pregabalin, Lyrica? No, you're talking about gabapentin encarbil (Horizant)?

I took 75mg Lyrica a time or two as a sleeping pill, because that's all it did when I added it in to my HM - it made me sleepy the next day but didn't affect my symptoms. But then it stopped having any effect at all. I kept the pills, thinking they might work (as sleep aids) again some day.

Gabapentin did not give me much of a sleepy side effect. ( It did not do much to relieve my symptoms, either. )

[EeFall]

Thanks Eefall, I've been following your journey/fight with RLS with much interest. I've had rls for years and finally got off DA's and gaba and now I'm back to getting up a few times every night but, for the time being I'm gonna carry on drug free and see what happens.

If there is anyway to do it drug free, that's the way to go! I hope you are successful. I would encourage anyone with WED to live without medications if at all possible.

I hate how the drugs alter my personality and the groggy feeling too, but for me I am stuck with the medications if I want to sleep. I wish it weren't so but at least I am at the point now that they allow me to sleep enough to continue working. My next goal now is to work a month without missing any days. It might sound like a small goal but over the past 2 years my condition changes so fast from week to week that I never know how it is going to go.

[ViewsAskew]

For what it's worth, the new formulation - the prodrug version that I can't think of the name of! - also does the same thing for me, but I felt very tired the next day. Could be that a lower dose would have worked.

pregabalin, Lyrica? No, you're talking about gabapentin encarbil (Horizant)?

YES! gabapentin encarbil - brain just wasn't firing when I typed this...

[EeFall]

It is a holiday for me so I wasn't in a hurry to get to sleep last night but I must have fell asleep around 11pm last night on couch, woke up at 1am and went to bed. Woke up at 8am! The 7 hours alone is fantastic in bed and to be able to sleep in - wow! Usually I wake up between 4am and 6am without an alarm. I woke up at 8am and it was sunny outside and my wife was at work. I had my earplugs in and it was a really strange feeling sleeping in that long. Then I realized my brother would be there by 9am and I had to rush around to get ready. We shot snooker for a couple of hours. Very relaxing day so far and I actually feel rested.

[EeFall]

I have slept 5 wonderful nights in a row with methadone and gabapentin - gabadone I crown thee. Three cheers for gabadone!
I'm going to bed at 10:30pm so I can get 7 hours of sleep but I feel so darn good that I hate to go to bed, probably should have gone to bed an hour ago. I sure hope this lasts.

[slimjim]

I have slept 5 wonderful nights in a row with methadone and gabapentin - gabadone I crown thee. Three cheers for gabadone!
I'm going to bed at 10:30pm so I can get 7 hours of sleep but I feel so darn good that I hate to go to bed, probably should have gone to bed an hour ago. I sure hope this lasts.

This is grat news. You deserve it

[EeFall]

I just can't win. I slept 6 1/2 hours last night with VPAP and I have slept 6 nights in a row with methadone and gabapentin but now I realize that I have been getting angry. I think the combination of drugs are changing my personality for the worse, truly like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I just feel angry a lot of the time. It is really strange. My wife asked me if I was putting water in the VPAP machine (I had let it go dry because I didn't think I needed the humidifier) but I asked her why and she said she has been hearing my mask leak. Maybe my sleep isn't all that good after all. I just don't know what is going on.

I think it may be a combination of the mask leaking and the gabapentin. This is unbelievable, I would rather not sleep at all that be a grumpy old man.

[rthom]

Has it been since you started the gabapentin? My attitude sucked at one time but I was on gabapentin and other meds--don't know which was the prob as I stopped them all at once.

[jul2873]

Hey EeFall,

We know you have a lot of self-control. You used it every day when you were going off all those meds and getting no sleep. So you are going to have to use all your self-control a bit longer to figure this out. Just because you feel angry doesn't mean you have to act angry.

Could you keep things the same for another week or so? All of these different chemicals in and out of your body may have things in an uproar. See if this anger (which may be depression) starts to lessen. If it doesn't, then you'll have to figure out what to do. An anti-depressant? Some kratom (which apparently acts like an anti-depressant sometimes)?

I hope you are talking with your doctor about this. I'm not a doctor and any advice I give--you need to keep that firmly in mind. Of course, if the anger is at level where either you or the people around you are not safe, then you'll need to do something right away.

Take care.

[EeFall]

Has it been since you started the gabapentin? My attitude sucked at one time but I was on gabapentin and other meds--don't know which was the prob as I stopped them all at once.

It is after I started gabapentin.

[EeFall]

Hey EeFall,

We know you have a lot of self-control. You used it every day when you were going off all those meds and getting no sleep. So you are going to have to use all your self-control a bit longer to figure this out. Just because you feel angry doesn't mean you have to act angry.

Could you keep things the same for another week or so? All of these different chemicals in and out of your body may have things in an uproar. See if this anger (which may be depression) starts to lessen. If it doesn't, then you'll have to figure out what to do. An anti-depressant? Some kratom (which apparently acts like an anti-depressant sometimes)?

I hope you are talking with your doctor about this. I'm not a doctor and any advice I give--you need to keep that firmly in mind. Of course, if the anger is at level where either you or the people around you are not safe, then you'll need to do something right away.

Take care.

I worked this out at work today but you have encouraged me by stating what I had only been thinking about. The sleep is too good to throw it away by stopping the gabapentin. I will give it a week and try to see if it will blow over, maybe I just have to get used to the meds. I don't think I am depressed, it seems like my nervous system is working overboard, like my pulse is even stronger. I can control it, at least now that I know something is going on, but I snapped at several people over the last week which would be very unusual for me. In fact I try to avoid confrontation just for the fact that I have had so little sleep the past 13 years. I'll even be sitting here by myself and get super riled over something and get mad over it, then I think, what are you doing? I took gabapentin years ago but I don't think I was taking methadone at the same time, who knows what interactions 2 drugs can do to ones mind. I suppose half the battle was to realize it last night that I wasn't being myself - man I hate these drugs for WED. I just have to remember to chill out it is almost like an OCD with a little anger thrown in - wonderful

[jul2873]

Keep us up on how you are doing. (BTW, you sound like a very nice person).

[EeFall]

Keep us up on how you are doing. (BTW, you sound like a very nice person).

I did imbibe in a little kratom and enjoyed some Washington State grass, how the grass tickles my toes! I feel so relaxed and calm. I want to create a new political party called Freedom, the first worldwide party based on the theory that everyone should have the right to party hardy. When I was a teenager, a group of us formed The Freedom Seekers